Labyrinth of Desire (3)
The chill swept over me as if my entire body had been plunged into an ice-cold bath. The moment the freezing sensation passed, I felt my limbs loosen. I cautiously opened my eyes.
“...Where the hell am I now?”
I was standing at the entrance of what appeared to be an art gallery. After the pure-white labyrinth and the pitch-black room, now an art gallery.
“This is exactly why I hate irregular Gates.”
Even regular subjugation Gates had their variables, but irregular ones were impossible to predict. I grumbled to myself as I looked around. In the middle of a vast, empty white space stood a single art gallery, towering alone. It felt eerily out of place—like someone had casually dropped a small, real-world museum into a silent, pure-white void.
Instinct told me Audrey had to be inside. At this point there was no reason to hesitate, so I decided to enter the gallery.
“......Audrey? Are you in here?”
As soon as I stepped inside, the lights flicked on automatically. The brightly illuminated walls were covered with paintings of a silver-haired girl who looked exactly like Audrey. A little girl smiling brightly while holding her mother and father’s hands. A girl turning around at an amusement park to flash a peace sign. And more…
They’re all happy moments from Audrey’s life.
The mirror that reflected desire. The place it had sucked me into this time seemed to be inside Audrey’s own mindscape.
“...It’d probably be rude to stare too much.”
If I examined this place, I would undoubtedly understand the depths of her heart better than even she did. It would be incredibly helpful in managing her going forward. But… those were things I should hear from Audrey’s own lips. Snooping around on my own would render it meaningless. If I betrayed her trust first, the small opening she had allowed into her heart would slam shut again.
“Trust, huh…”
At first I had thought of them as nothing but untouchable crazy bitches. Now here I was, playing around with concepts like trust. I let out a hollow laugh inside and slowly crossed the gallery.
In the very center of the museum stood a single enormous clock that reached all the way to the ceiling.
“Audrey, why do you have to make things so damn difficult for people?”
And right in front of it, Audrey stood blankly staring up at the clock.
“...Manager?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Your poor manager who’s been through hell thanks to you.”
Even inside this mental world she was still wearing her suit. Audrey quietly turned to look at me as I held my hand out to her.
“Let’s go back now. …I don’t know how to get out, though.”
“......I don’t want to.”
Hm. That answer I hadn’t expected.
“Why not? Because you want to stay with your dead father?”
“...When I’m in this beautiful art gallery, it feels like I’m back in my father and mother’s arms. It’s comfortable. Warm.”
Audrey swept back her flowing silver hair and looked around with her blue eyes—at the happy days of her past, now decorated like beautiful works of art.
“It’s different from the real world, where beauty is so desperately lacking. I don’t need to kill people or destroy anything to realize aesthetics. Simply by being here, I can savor a beautiful world.”
“Then what about me.”
“...Pardon?”
“I’m not in this gallery, am I?”
The Audrey of the past must have lived a truly happy life—so happy that losing it had turned her into the madwoman she was today. With a kind mother and a father who had been both her idol and her lighthouse. The two of them together. But the emotions she showed when she clung to me in reality, the strange obsession she felt, and the sweet expression on her face when we kissed—those were real too.
“Come back with me. We haven’t spent that much time together, but it’s been fun in its own way, hasn’t it?”
That was how I planned to pull her back to reality.
…Or so I thought.
“Didn’t you only need Calathea, Manager?”
“T-that’s not what I—”
The words Audrey spat out with a cold expression were far more direct than anything she would say in reality. I awkwardly averted my gaze.
“Isn’t it? You are endlessly soft and indulgent only with Calathea. Yet you always treat me with strictness even though I try to cooperate with you.”
Like an eldest daughter sulking over her father’s favoritism toward the youngest, Audrey began to pour out her feelings with rising emotion.
“I understand that you’re afraid of Calathea’s rape threats, but what happened to the stubbornness you showed when you first built walls against us? No, that wall is still there. It just lowers endlessly for Calathea while remaining completely intact between you and me.”
“Ah, no, wait a second—”
“For example, remember the underwear thief incident last time? When you suspected me and lectured me, I clearly said it wasn’t me, but you didn’t believe me. Even though it turned out Calathea was the one who stole them.”
“I saw you near the bathroom before I went in to shower, so I had no choice but to suspect you at the time…”
“It’s not just about suspicion. The moment you learned Calathea had stolen them to use as masturbation material, what did you do, Manager?”
“.........”
“You just sighed as if it couldn’t be helped and let it go. Completely different from how you treat me.”
This wasn’t just slightly emotional. Unlike reality, where self-control acted as a filter, she was pouring out every thought in her head exactly as it was. She even used words she would never normally say, relentlessly driving me into a corner.
“Does Calathea treat you that well? Those ridiculously large breasts with zero aesthetic value pressing down on your arm, that ass practically visible under those pathetic panty-like scraps of cloth, and…!”
Spitting out her complaints like a machine gun, Audrey had drawn so close she was practically grabbing my collar. She glared at me.
The feeling of facing an angry Audrey like this was… how should I put it? It felt like I was finally seeing her real face. Well, everyone has to wear big and small masks to live with others, so a bare face isn’t necessarily the only “real” one.
“Why are you smiling…? Manager, that’s exactly why—”
“I’m sorry, my daughter.”
The moment I gently pulled her into my arms and whispered, Audrey froze completely.
“I must have taken my daughter’s goodwill for granted and hurt your feelings. I’m sorry.”
“...You are not my father, Manager.”
“I know. Of course I know. But it’s okay if I’m something like a substitute, right?”
I recalled what I had seen in the mirror reflecting her desires and tried using it. Fortunately, it seemed to work on Audrey. Her body, which had been trembling with passion, slowly… began to relax the way it did when she clung to me normally.
“Your father is no longer with us.”
“I know that too.”
“The same goes for your mother.”
“...I know that as well.”
“But they left behind a beauty named ‘Audrey Winter’ in this world.”
Audrey said nothing.
“Are you going to throw that away? Just for fake illusions and memories of the past?”
“If I stay here… it doesn’t hurt anymore.”
“That very pain is proof that you still love your parents, that you haven’t forgotten them. Trying to escape into empty illusions simply because of that pain—isn’t that turning things completely upside down?”
“......Those kinds of words…”
“As you know, I lost my older sister. And I refuse to forget it. No matter how painful, I remember. Not only to pay for my sins… but because that’s how I can keep remembering her.”
I gently stroked Audrey’s hair.
“The pain of loss is agonizing. But that’s precisely how we know they’re still alive inside our hearts. Even without coming into this mental world, these wonderful paintings are carefully preserved here.”
“.........”
“I’m not telling you to overcome the pain. I’m not telling you to bury it either. We simply have to live with that pain. Even if you can’t fully understand my words right now… until it hurts a little less, it’s okay for you to think of me as something like a father substitute.”
To Audrey, who looked up at me with dazed eyes, I gave a faint smile.
“Go on. Call me without holding back. It’s fine.”
“......D-Dad.”
“Yes, my daughter.”
Audrey called me once in a trembling voice, then buried her face deep in my chest. Like a child, she clung to me tightly, rubbing her face against me while repeatedly calling me “Dad” as I stroked her head. I carefully ran my fingers through her silver hair…
And with an expressionless face, I bit my lip hard.
You pathetic bastard. Talking like some wise man.
I had spoken to Audrey as if I were some sage, yet unlike her, I couldn’t even properly mourn. She could approach her father’s image in the mirror without hesitation, while I froze the moment I saw my sister’s face in one. What right did I have to give advice about honoring the dead?
I quietly swallowed my breath and continued… continued stroking Audrey’s hair.
“......Hm?”
For a moment, I thought I saw a handsome silver-haired man smiling at me. A light wave of dizziness hit me. When I closed and reopened my eyes, we were already back at the spot in reality where the Gate had been. A purple, round magic stone rested in my hand.
“...Manager? Why am I hugging you?”
“Uh, um… how much do you remember?”
“I think I saw my father’s image in the mirror… but I don’t remember anything after that.”
Audrey pulled herself out of my arms with an awkward expression. She looked at where the Gate entrance had been, then at the magic stone in my hand. It seemed she had no memory from the moment she fell under the mirror’s illusion. Naturally, she wouldn’t remember the conversation I had with her mind inside the mental world either.
…Well, maybe that was for the best. I had blurted out a lot of embarrassing things without realizing it.
“And the Gate… did you clear it, Manager?”
“Pretty much. You got pulled into the mirror and disappeared somewhere, so I followed you. There was one huge mirror, and when I smashed it, the Gate was cleared.”
“How anticlimactic for an A-class Gate.”
“Tell me about it.”
I decided to keep hidden what had happened with her after she fell under the mirror’s illusion. Audrey hated it when I lied, but honestly, telling her everything that occurred inside would only open old wounds. Even though I had pompously said we had to live with the pain, it was obviously better if it hurt less, right?
“Then since the Gate has been cleared—let’s head back, Manager. I feel rather tired, and… suddenly I want to eat the fine food you make for me.”
“Wait, Audrey…!”
With a face that somehow looked even more beautiful than before, Audrey tightly linked her arm with mine and dragged me all the way to the car I had parked nearby. She really doesn’t remember, right?
……Does she?